With the tide coming up and nine people working the bucket brigade, they managed to douse the whale with a lot more water. They dug a trench in the sandy beach so the water could pool a bit around the four-metre long whale.

“He really perked up when he got the water, and blew a whole bunch of times,” Stapleton said. “He got us right in the face!”

By the time high tide approached around 2:30 p.m., they had dug a deeper trench. Four people were able to turn the young whale toward the sea as larger waves came in and floated him a bit.

Finally, the water rose high enough only the whale’s dorsal fin was still in the air.

“He flipped his tail really hard, swam in a circle, and came right back to us,” Stapleton said.

“He just wasn’t ready yet — he sat for another 10 or 15 minutes and then left a final time.”

Local fisheries officers and volunteers with Masset Marine Rescue arrived from Masset just after the whale returned to sea.

The DFO officers watched the young whale for about 45 minutes, and although they did see a whale spout when they first arrived at Naden, they saw no other sign that the whale’s mother or pod might be around. DFO officials later confirmed it was a minke whale and not a humpback, judging by its small, banded pectoral fins.

From the scratches on its back, Stapleton said the group guessed that the young whale may have been scared from its mother by orcas.

“She was probably out there, hopefully,” she said. “We gave him a shot, so that’s all we can do.”

After about six hours eye-to-eye with the whale on the beach, Andy Adams said it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to watch it swim free.